Ramatu Kargbo

Country: Sierra Leone

My birthday is 2017-07-28

Status: Vulnerable Child

I want to be a nurse.

I enjoy playing balance ball (dodge ball).

Ramatu lives with her mom and three siblings in the village of Tombo in Sierra Leone. She loves to play balance ball with her friends, and her favorite color is blue. Ramatu's favorite food is rice and stew. She has never been to school, so she doesn’t know her favorite subject, but she hopes to become a nurse when she grows up. Her mom works as a petty trader and struggles to make enough to provide for her family. Ramatu's biggest prayer request is to attend school and be educated. 

Most parents struggle to provide their families with more than one meal a day, so the cost to send their children to school is not easy to come by. Typically, those who can afford to send one or two of their children to school will choose to send only their sons. Girls whose parents cannot afford to send them to school will be left at home to tend to daily chores, and their smaller siblings while the parents are away earning their daily wages. This lack of education and supervision makes girls just entering adolescence very vulnerable to teenage pregnancy. Girls who have not been given access to education are often left with no option but to marry at young ages to be financially supported by their husbands.